U.S. health care bill in trouble

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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama’s health care appeal failed to break the Thursday, dimming hopes for millions of uninsured Americans. Democrats stared down a political nightmare — getting clobbered for voting last year for ambitious, politically risky bills, yet having nothing to show for it the November elections.

The grim reality opened a divide between the rank and file and congressional leaders, who insisted health care would get passed, even though last week’s special election in Massachusetts denied Democrats the 60-vote majority they need to deliver in the 100-member Senate. Many Democrats saw a problem with no clear solution.

“It’s very possible that health care is just a stalemate and you can’t solve it this year,” said Sen. Mark Pryor, a Democrat.

If Obama and Democrats fail to pass any legislation this election year, Washington would still face the problem of millions of uninsured, rising medical costs and a dwindling trust fund for a government-run health plan for the elderly forecast to run out of money in 2017.

Obama’s health care overhaul is “on life support,” said Sen. Mary Landrieu, a Democrat, “but it still has a pulse.”

Obama urged lawmakers in Wednesday night’s State of the Union address not to abandon the effort on what was once his top domestic priority — expanding coverage to millions of uninsured and reining in medical costs. But his enthusiastic words provided no specific prescription for moving forward, leaving lawmakers little better off than before.

Senate Democratic leaders huddled Thursday to try to determine how to proceed, and the White House remained engaged in the negotiations. A Senate aide said lawmakers were hoping to decide on a legislative strategy by the end of next week.

Republican senators said senior White House officials had reached out to several in their ranks, including some conservatives, despite the unanimous Republican opposition to the far-reaching bill.

In a sign of how far health care had fallen since Obama campaigned on it, Senate Democrats devoted a weekly policy lunch Thursday to discussing jobs, not health care. Yet House and Senate leaders insisted success was still in reach.

“We’re going to move forward on health reform. We’re going to do health care reform this year,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat.

The leader of the House, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, acknowledged in her weekly news conference that plenty of work remained if the House was to agree to changes to the Senate bill.

“We will go through the gate. If the gate is closed, we will go over the fence. If the fence is too high, we will pole vault in. If that doesn’t work, we will parachute in,” Pelosi said. “But we are going to get health care reform passed for the American people.”

Just two weeks ago House and Senate leaders were working round the clock at the White House, with Obama personally involved, to merge legislation passed separately by each chamber and finalize a bill for Obama to sign in time for his State of the Union speech.

Tags: nation and world, news, obama, healthcare